When they required less support, they stayed where they were, and the support left. People only moved when they wanted to move.

Also during the 1980s a number of initiatives focused on even deeper dimensions to the idea of "home."

When support to people in their own homes is more available, more attention could be placed on issues such as ownership, control of space, security of tenure, and choice about where to live, with whom, and with what support.

Some of the strategies developed in the 1980s to promote greater control by people with disabilities over their housing included:

developing and participating in housing cooperatives

purchasing homes through housing associations

the use of trusts (family trusts, private trusts, community land trusts)

the use of housing vouchers and subsidies (HUD Section "8" subsidies, "bridge" subsidies through state, regional and county offices responsible for people with disabilities, and subsidies developed in conjunction with HCBW programs)

housing modifications, and

creative use of funding sources.

Photo courtesy Ann Marsden

Among other outcomes, these initiatives led to the development of the National Home of Your Own Alliance in the 1990s.

The fact that smaller and smaller settings were developing does not mean that this was universal.

There were also deinstitutionalization efforts that could be characterized as "one size fits all."

The GCDD is funded under the provisions of P.L. 106-402. The federal law also provides funding to the Minnesota Disability Law Center, the state Protection and Advocacy System, and to the Institute on Community Integration, the state University Center for Excellence. The Minnesota network of programs works to increase the IPSII of people with developmental disabilities and families into community life.